Broken Watch
by Aloria-Catalonia
Summary: "He sat there, holding the broken pocket watch in his hands. Toni was sitting next to him, going back and forth between putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder and staring out the window at the people leaving the ER." AU now. Eventual Ples/Veser
1. Chapter 1

AN: Many of you know this story from DeviantArt. I have not been updating my account there very often, due to limited computer access (my phone doesn't update things well, unfortunately). For those of you who don't, this was inspired from my father's car accident, a year ago next month. It kept me busy during the hours I couldn't sleep while waiting to hear from the hospital, after Dad got sent hours away when they found a fracture in one of his disks in his neck.

Several of the lines are actual things I jotted down in the waiting room of the hospital while they wouldn't let me see my Dad. I have learned to hate waiting rooms from this experience. Three hours and they wouldn't even tell us how he was doing.

I was partway through writing the second chapter, two months later, when my father suddenly had a heart attack and died. All of my writing, my art, everything, just…well, I couldn't focus. It took six months before I felt I was regaining some of my desire to try. This story, as well as my one titled Taming Of The Scarecrow, are two projects I'm hoping to focus on again, as I'm regaining voice. It will likely be a slow process, but I plan on bringing the two stories to a satisfactory end, as I had intended, and so, if you can be patient, I hope I do not disappoint.

This story is now so far beyond OCC now, but I still enjoy writing it, and thus I hope others will still enjoy reading it.

All characters except for the doctors and the people in the other car all belong to Tessa Stone, who is awesome and willingly allows us to play with her characters.

XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXXD

He sat there, holding the broken pocket watch in his hands. Toni was sitting next to him, going back and forth between putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder and staring out the window at the people leaving the ER. Zombie Guy- what had Hanna called him today? Takashi? Leon?- had opted to stay outside, while Hanna was across the room. Somewhere to his left was Conrad, who was trying to avoid looking at the other occupants of the room. And the mirrors.

Mirrors on every fucking wall of the waiting room. Why? So everyone can see how much they're freaking out?

The guy a few chairs away got up and entered the single, unisex, handicap accessible bathroom. A minute or two pass of silence before the sound of vomiting can be heard. It's not pleasant, nothing about this place is. The dead silence beyond the fragmented whispers of conversation, the uncomfortable mock-cushioned wood-framed chairs, the growing dread of not knowing how he was doing.

Remembering his face, covered in blood, and the front of the car, all smashed to hell.

Veser's grip on the watch tightened. "How long has it been since the lady said twenty minutes?"

Toni paused to think.

"Probably about forty."

A numb nod, back to staring at the watch. It wasn't ticking. Idly, he wondered how pissed Ples would be about that.

_Broken glass everywhere. The windshield was fragmented, but the driver's window was gone. The airbag hadn't deployed, Ples, laying limp against the steering wheel-_

Veser shot up, running the few feet to the door and the desk beyond.

"Hi, I arrived with the patient Ples Tibenoch…" The woman nodded. "I…was wondering if anything came out about how he was doing?"

The woman smiled. "They were wheeling him in to get a CAT scan of his head and neck."

"Can I see him?"

"The police are still with him, so I can't let you. I'm sorry."

Veser nodded, "Okay." It wounded weak, even to his own ears. The lady flashed him an apologetic smile.

"Just go back to the waiting room. I'll have someone come get you."

The waiting room was just as cheery as he had left it, though his friends gazed at him as he took his seat.

"They're checking out his head."

Hanna shifted in his chair. Silence took control of the room again. Conrad busied himself rereading the posters on the wall, fidgeting with his hood as he passed within view of one of the mirrors.

Toni placed her hand on his shoulder again, forcing a small smile.

"He's going to be okay."

Veser nodded, but couldn't force himself to agree.

Hanna stood up. "I need some air," and he ran out the door. Through the windows, Toni watched as he moved to cling to his zombie's shirt.

A new girl entered the room and looked around, bee-lining to the television in the corner and turning it on.

_She must have some emergency_, Veser thought bitterly. _Look, she's laughing. She's watching tv and laughing while Ples is laying in a bed somewhere bleeding and oh my god, what if he's dying? Fuck, FUCK, that's what's taking them so long. He's dying and they don't know how to tell us an it's all my fault and-_-

"Are you here for Mr. Tibenoch?"

Veser was on his feet before anyone else had a chance to move.

"Yes. How is he? Can we see him?"

"We're still waiting for the results of the x-rays, but he appears to be just fine. Um…" The doctor looked Veser over, "are you family?"

"Yes."

"May I ask how?"

"Boyfriend?" he tried. The doctor appeared skeptical. "Hey, I know there's a bit of an age gap. Don't judge us."

"…This way, please."

Veser nodded, looking at Toni. She smiled.

"We'll go tell Hanna."

"Okay." And he followed the doctor out into the hallway. Ples' room was three down from the entrance, and the door was open. Veser peaked in. It was silent, aside from the heart monitor.

"Ples?" He took a few steps in.

The nurse that was taking the older man's blood pressure smiled.

"He's okay."

_No, no he's not okay. He's not ticking. How can he be okay if he's not ticking?_

The nurse stepped out, talking to the doctor in a whispered voice. Veser paid them no mind, moving to take in the surreal sight of Ples in a green, polka-dot hospital gown. There was an IV in his arm, connected to nothing, and the gashes on his forehead were still bleeding. His wallet lay on the table next to him, beside his shattered glasses.

"…How are you feeling?"

"Not…too bad, I suppose." The brace on his neck kept him from turning too far, but he searched out Veser with his eyes, taking in the small scratches on his face. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah…um…here." He placed the broken pocket watch in one of Ples' hands. Ples rubbed it with his thumb, before raising it above his head to look at it with a frown.

"Broken."

"I'm sorry."

Ples lowered his hand, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he locked them with Veser's.

"The watch can be fixed. I'm just glad it wasn't you that got broken."

"Instead it was you," Veser's voice cracked, and he had to look away. He focused on the ceiling, with all it's little dots and lines. And the lights, with the stupid plastic covering to try and make it look like the sky. One even had stupid fake kites "flying" around.

"Veser," Ples made sure the boy was looking at him, "I'm fine."

"You look like shit."

"Thanks for the reassurance," there was a hint of a laugh at the end, causing Veser to give a small, weary smile.

"Well, you do."

_Blood and glass. Ples' limp form over the steering wheel, illuminated by the headlights of the vehicle that'd struck them. Shaken people staggering out of the other car. More vehicles stopping. Blue lights in the distance, coming closer._

_Head wounds bleed, he knows. Gods does Veser know. But there's so much dripping down and Ples isn't moving and he's dead, he's dead, oh gods he's dead. He's just lost Lee and now he's lost Ples, too, and it's all his fault. Ples was picking him up and fuck, he should've just stayed at the dorm over the break but he'd asked Ples and now…_

_Now he was scrambling over the seat, glass digging into his hands and legs but it doesn't matter, pain doesn't matter, he's dealt with pain but Ples isn't moving and he just needs to know._

_A few shaky breaths and Veser is relieved; he hasn't lost him yet, not yet, and he's still holding on to him when the paramedics come to take them away._

Ples' hand touches Veser's and the younger jumps, just slightly.

"I apologize for scaring you."

"I don't get scared." He tightened his grip on the old man's hand anyway.

"For worrying you, then."

Veser nods, looking down at their joined hands. Ples' skin had always been paler than his, but in the hospital lighting, the difference was much more apparent. Instead of looking like a man who hardly saw the sun, he looked more like…Well, like Conrad. Like he was dead and reanimated. But while he knew a few dead boys that could still talk and move, the hand in his was warm, and the heart monitor in the corner beeped on, counting the seconds of silence away before the doctor appeared in the door.

"Mr. Tibenoch, how are you feeling?"

"About the same as the last time you asked." He moved, as if to get up, before stopping himself. "May I sit up?"

"Go ahead. The nurses will be in to take the neck brace off in a minute. I would like to talk to your boyfriend for a minute, is that alright?"

"I-I…He…He…I d-don't….we're…" Still laying down, he cast Veser a look.

_What did you tell them?_

Veser shrugged-_It got me in to see you, didn't it?-before giving him a smile, releasing his hand to follow the doctor out of the room._

"_The results of the CAT scan were clean, so we'll be releasing him into your care," the doctor began, making his way across the very short hallway to a glass office. A few of the nurses he'd seen before were sitting there, filling out paperwork, or chatting amongst themselves. Some guy walked by with a urinal, presumably on his way to take it to testing._

"_It'd be best for him to take the next few days easy, plenty of bed rest to avoid pulling the stitches. He'll want to make an appointment in five to seven days to get them removed so the injuries can heal with less chance of scarring. Closer to five would be preferable." Veser nodded. "The rest will also help make sure there is no damage to his spine."_

"_I thought the x-ray came out clean?"_

"_It has. But damage can still be done after the fact, so it's best he avoids any strenuous activities for the next week or so. And if he feels any pain, we encourage he get it checked out immediately before it becomes anything serious."_

"_Okay, so bed and I should do all the work," Veser smiled, taking the clipboard from the doctor and scribbling his name on the dotted line. "Anything else?"_

"_Once he's dressed, he's free to go."_

"_Thank you."_

_Veser hurried back into the room just as the nurses were leaving with the neck brace. Inside, Ples was just buttoning his pants. He looked at him, before focusing his attention on the stained shirt lying on the bed, pulling it on with a sigh._

"_The nurses have done nothing but give me distressing looks since you left," Ples said, doing up the buttons._

"_They're just jealous. C'mon, you get all of this," Veser gestured to himself, "waiting on you hand and foot for the next few weeks."_

_Ples frowned. "I don't want you waiting on me."_

_Veser pouted. "Oh come on! I can take care of you really good!"_

"_That's not…" Ples caught sight of one of the nurses glancing in at them, face turning red as he moved to put on his shoes. "I-I am…q-quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you."_

"_Too bad," Veser grinned. "Doctor's orders."_

"_R-really, it's not…necessary."_

"_I'm staying with you anyway," Veser threw an arm around his shoulders best he could with the height difference, leading him from the room. "So it doesn't matter. I'm gonna anyway."_

_He took Ples' sigh as a sign of surrender._


	2. Chapter 2

_The pale blue tint of the skin was barely visible in the reflected light creeping into the room. Shirt undone and body half curled, Veser would have believed the man to be sleeping, were he on the bed mere feet away from the spot on the floor his body was occupying. Were it not for the glasses slightly askew on his face._

_The room was still darkened from the absence of the sun, and the corners had to them a sort of hazy appearance that slowly circled the room, obscuring all but the basic outlines of furniture that may or not be there; he couldn't tell, unable to focus on anything aside from the elder man for such durations of time as would be required of him to actually look._

_Veser crept forward, bare feet on hard wood that felt like nothing, until he reached him, kneeling down, afraid to touch, to validate what he already knew; knowledge that was turning his blood to ice and his organs to salt and the chemical chain reaction trying to burn its way up, up, until it could spill out onto the world that just couldn't be, because this could just not be true._

"_Ples?"_

_But the man didn't move._

"_C-come on, man…" His hand paused over the pale chest, unable to make contact and destroy his last remaining ounce of hope. "Sleeping on the floor…man, that's hardly good manners, right? Didn't anyone teach you that?"_

_He chuckled darkly, a sound that turned into a choke, dragging out a half sob. He folded in on himself, attempting to hold it in, and his hand collided with the too-cold skin, and Veser could only stare._

_He'd killed him, just as he'd killed Lee. Was this the destiny of everyone he cared about? Everyone who cared about him?_

_A ticking filled the silence, so loud Veser wondered how he'd never noticed it before. He imagined the ticking being a replacement heartbeat for Ples, as if the ancient grandfather clock it was coming from was willingly giving up it's time for him, for both of them. It was easier than having it remind him that he'd been too late, is still too late, and is getting farther away from the time he could have helped, could have saved him. _

_He ran his hand down the smooth skin of the chest, then back up. He wished he could transfer all of his warmth into the cold body. With his warmth and a ticking heart, Ples would be alive, right?_

_Veser pulled Ples close, wrapping him in as much of a cocoon on his limbs as he could manage with the height difference, cradling the elder's head under his chin and closed his eyes, pretending his body heat was turning the skin back from blue, pretending he could feel a beat with each passing tick. _

When he opened his eyes again, he still had that same desperate grip, and it was dark, but the soft hair was replaced by the silken pillowcase he was holding on to.

Bare feet hit the cold, hard floor. Veser thought of Ples' bare skin, equally cold, and stumbled, hurrying across the room, hands colliding with the doorway in the dark, preventing his head from doing the same. He moved as quickly as he dared through the halls, not letting the growing dread slow him down as he made it to Ples' room, refusing to give himself enough time to pause at the door as he opened it and walked in.

The older man's glasses-his second pair, years old, Ples had said, but they would let him see enough until he was able to go out and buy a new pair-lay on the headboard, reflecting the light carrying in through the window on the far side of the room. Clothes were folded neatly on the dresser to his right.

Ples lay on his side in the bed, blankets pulled just high enough to cover his chest. He was facing away from the window, casting his face into darkness. A bare, pale arm lay above the blanket, fist curled lightly into the fabric in front of him; his other arm disappeared underneath the pillows. From this angle, it was impossible to see if the man's chest moved at all, but the sound of his breathing filled the space between the ticking clocks.

It wasn't enough.

Veser made his way over to the bed, climbing on to better lean over him. Ples didn't stir, but his skin was not blue, and it was warm. The skin under his hand was _alive._

_Veser let out a shaky breath, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and let his head fall onto the bed beside Ples' hand. He stayed that way for a while, simply basking in the feeling of knowing he had not been the cause of another parental figure's death. Ples hadn't asked for Veser to come screaming through the dark and into his life (neither had Lee, but Lee had been a part of it since before he was even born, so it was a little less his fault, but only just a little) but he had, and he'd refused to go away._

_He wondered if Ples minded. He seemed fine with it all, but the elder likely had much more important ways to spend his time than catering to the whims of a nineteen year-old half-selkie he'd only met months ago. And if he didn't before, did he now?_

_Veser sat back up, staring at the still figure in front of him in the bed. Ples would have to get a new car now, probably, and his car had been old, probably a classic of some kind or another. Hell, he'd probably been driving it since before Veser was even born, and now it was wrecked._

_He stood with a sigh, wondering just how he was capable of always messing things up so badly, and turned to head back to his room. Except…_

_In the faint light, Ples looked unnaturally pale, perhaps even a little blue._

_Veser crawled into the bed, facing Ples' back, and closed his eyes. Just a few minutes, just to calm his nerves, then he'd go back to his room and pretend it was just another night. He believed that, until the rhythmic breathing and the ticking lulled him into a blissfully dreamless sleep._

_When Ples woke, the Veser was still there._


	3. Chapter 3

"Oh man, look at this thing!" Veser walked to the front of the car.

"Indeed. We were quite fortunate to walk away unharmed," Ples pulled at the door handle, which gave far too easily, leaving Ples unsteady on his feet for a moment as the momentum from the unnecessary strength in the tug threw him back. He regained his footing easily, and pretended not to see the way Veser started, as if he were mere seconds away from darting around the car to catch him before he fell.

He was touched, in a way, but simultaneously frustrated. He was not, as Veser has seemingly taken to think, an invalid. Adjusting his glasses-no longer the right prescription, making things slightly fuzzier than he was used to, but it was better than nothing at all-he set to work separating anything of personal value from the debris that filled the cab, placing everything in the boxes placed carefully on the roof of the car.

Veser watched him through the windshield, around the spidered cracks above twisted metal, before turning his attention to the other cars around the yard.

The one next to them was a charred and gutted mess. Veser's imagination wandered, before looking to the car beyond it, then the next, until he finally found the smashed up hull of the truck that had smashed into them. The wheel under the driver's side looked like it was gone, but had actually folded up beneath it. The windshield was completely gone, and there was definite damage to the lower part of the front end, where the collision had occurred. It would never drive again.

_Good,_ Veser thought, turning back to Ples, who was riffling through the glove compartment.

_He could see Ples through the windshield as the paramedics checked him for injuries, waiting to see if he was fit for transport, lest they cause him additional damage _

_The other driver leaned against the side of his truck, shaking as he raised a cigarette to his mouth as he watched his companions talk to the police one after another. One came to him then, and he hesitantly looked from Veser to the paramedics surrounding the car._

"_Did I hurt anyone?" The man asked, wide-eyed._

_Veser wanted to scream, standing there in the dark, and run away from the scene, as if that could make it all stop, like it made his father's beatings stop for the moment, but was frozen in place as a stretcher was brought over and Ples' still unmoving form was set on top of it, and wasn't so sure his father was the person he hated most in this moment. _

_Veser jerked open the back door, dragging his bags from the seat, throwing them onto the roof of the car before crawling in and searching for anything that looked vaguely important. Receipts and other papers were shoved into the box he dragged in with him, followed by loose change and the odd assortment of pens that had accumulated on the man's floor. From between the seats, he watched as Ples flipped through the owner's manual and sighed._

"_I had liked this car," he whispered, snapping the glove compartment closed._

"_Sorry."_

_Ples pinched the bridge of his nose. "It is not your fault, Veser now stop apologizing."_

"_Sorry."_

_Veser grinned at Ples' sigh, and felt between the cushions for anything that might've fallen in. It, like underneath the seat, was clean. Satisfied that there was nothing left but the empty take-out bag residing on the floor, Veser stood up, dragging the box with him as he did. Ples continued to search for a moment, before following suit. _

"_I suppose I will have to get a new one, after the insurance clears," Ples says idly. _

_Veser, who no longer enjoys the thought of Ples behind the wheel of anything, merely makes a sound in affirmation, before shouldering his bags and picking the boxes up best he could, leaving the lightest one for Ples._

"_Really, Veser, I can…"_

"_No heavy lifting."_

"_They're boxes, Veser, with a total accumulated weight of no more than five pounds. I daresay I can handle the strain."_

"_I left you one. Now come on, Lamont's waiting."_

_Ples huffed. "You look like a pack mule."_

"_That's cause I'm big and strong cause I eat my Wheaties."_

"_You do no such thing," Ples stated, "I know from personal experience."_

"_Well, I would if there was nothing else to eat."_

"_Is that so? Perhaps I should neglect the shopping for the following week, then. It would certainly save my kitchen the catastrophes that will befall it as I am apparently too invalid to manage any of the cooking."_

"_I didn't mean to set that omelet on fire." Veser said defensively._

"_No," Ples sighed, "but my cupboards will likely never recover nonetheless."_

"_I've gotten better."_

"_Yes, the toast was magnificent this morning," Ples teased._

"_What can I say? I'm a culinary genius." Opening the trunk of Lamont's car with his surprisingly free hand, Veser loaded the boxes and bags in before slamming it closed. Lamont emerged moments later, still engaged in conversation with the owner of the junkyard. Hands were shaken, then the three men piled into the cramped vehicle and made their way back to the place Veser and Ples called home._


End file.
